Random Beach – California

After the redwoods the GPS decided to try and kill me again, attempting to send me up dirt roads clearly labeled, “not a through way” and then telling me to turn left into a tree. There was no road at all where she claimed there was one. This resulted in me being creative in my attempt to find an exit and in doing so I somehow stumbled onto a beach with a number of little structures, half buried in the sand. It was a little fort or something. I’m not sure. It was however low tide and the sea seemed so far away.

I was hungry and tired and in no way in the mood for walking on a cold windy beach, trudging through the sand, in search of invisible shells. It was indeed nippy and to make matters worse my shoes had worn out to the point they felt like tacks stabbing into the back of my heals with each step. I already lost some skin to this degradation and it didn’t take long before I found myself barefootin’ again.

The beach was beautiful, filled with all sorts of bleached redwood driftwood. Still it was windy and cold. I didn’t really start to enjoy it until we found a dead something washed up. All that was left of it was the bones of it’s torso. The hips were backwards facing and the scapula was no less confusing. I theorized it to be a bird but if it was a bird it was an enormous bird. Do seals have backwards facing pelvises? I don’t know anything about marine mammals, maybe it was something like that. ***Further research revealed the bone to be that of a baby seal.

I walked farther up the beach and I was doing fairly OK until I realized my bandana had blown away and was nowhere to be found, leaving my hair to whip wildly around my face. I couldn’t see a thing any more and was getting increasingly cranky. I didn’t find any shells, only some pretty colorful rocks we pocketed and promised to deposit in a future fish tank. My purse kept falling off my shoulder and it felt heavier than usual. I threw the damn thing and screamed. I didn’t feel any better after this unusual fit. Suffice to say by the time I reached the car I was just ready to book it out of there. After a cereal bar I was once again returned to a world I could deal with. Hypoglycemia’s ever so much fun, randomly throwing me into hyper, aggressive/agitated, or weepy moods I find intensely hard to control. I think if it wasn’t for that I probably would have enjoyed that beach… it was rather like a desert island, hidden, private, and very neat.

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

June 15, 2011 0

Joshua Tree National Park California

Disappointed by Vulture City and the Petrified Forest I had to wonder what was in Joshua tree. I imagined it to be someone’s back yard where a small child hugged a tree it had named Joshua. Can’t be disappointed if that’s how much you expect from something.. then again, I have been to the birthplace of Johnny Appleseed.

Joshua Tree is actually another park in the middle of a desert. When I saw that I expected another Big Bend horror story but I was so dead on my feet I needed to stay somewhere. I also hoped for showers. There were none. “Did your bathroom have a light in it?” “No.” “Did yours have soap and paper towels?” “Nope, none of that either, but the toilets did flush, that’s a plus…”

I talked to the personnel there who told me one of the main attractions to Joshua Tree, besides the elusive Joshua Trees themselves were the tortoises. Apparently it is home to a large population of endangered tortoises. I asked were we could see them and the woman claimed they were everywhere. The park itself was huge though, and didn’t have any gas stations so before settling in I left to find gas. The only place nearby did not have its prices advertised and only when you started pumping did you realize they were charging $4.20 per gallon. There were kids everywhere infesting the place but they weren’t just any kids, they were the kids you see in apocalyptic sci-fi movies. There was a van full of teenage girls here with their minister on some Christian mission. They’d written in marker all over the van’s windows with a number of suggestive things, “Hot Chickas on Board.” “We kneel for Jesus,” “Honk if you love Jesus!” I am not sure if their minister was just that out of touch with his flock that he had no idea they were treating this outing as a practical joke or if he just didn’t know how to control them. Either way the boys were even worse than the little prosti-tots.

The place was swarming with tween boys as well. A number of them smelled as if they had never known the word shower. One ten year old boy had bleached permed hair and since he probably already had curly hair to begin with… well he ended up with completely bleached kinky hair, standing straight up, decorated sparsely with a bead here and there. All the kids here were rude, obnoxious, and insinuating. A whole swarm of baby douches. I don’t really approve of that wording but what else could I call them? These kids reminded me of all those stereotyped spoofs of New Jersey.

Have you ever met someone who has had such a traumatic and fucked up childhood that you know they have no chance in hell of functioning normally as an adult in society? I think this godforsaken corner of the desert is where these runaways ended up with their seven children, who all devolved through successive generations until these little treasures came into the world… and ministers, naively, try to save them.

The store itself wasn’t much better than the kids who infested it. There was a shelf labeled “souvenirs” which only contained obscene bric-a-bracs, an Indian woman holding two pots in front of her boobs, a little cactus growing out of each, and a cowboy and Indian man each holding their britches open, a cactus jutting out from them. “What the fuck is wrong with this place?” Bizarrely there was no firewood on offer and the only water being sold was as a nearly solidly frozen two liter bottle of “frozen water,” what us sane people would call ice. I got out of there as soon as I could.

I returned to Joshua Tree so tired, but determined to at least see a tortoise to make it worthwhile. I stopped at the visitor center to pay and get everything settled. I walked back to the car where I found a couple Brits discussing the Jeep.

“Look at that license plate, it says New Hampshire. I’ve been there. Live free or die! I love that!”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean? What’s so free about it?”

“I don’t know, I have a T-shirt that reads that.” I was standing off to the side waiting to get into my car, without saying a word, silently laughing to myself that live free or die actually refers to the revolutionary war… live free of the British crown and their taxes or die. I could have said something but I was still a bit shell shocked from the last place we were at and didn’t feel like talking. Besides this guy’s accent was rough! I don’t know which town he originated from but I can tell you it was working class. I waited patiently for them to move out of my way to get back into my car.

I set up the tent in another gusty wind, fighting all the way, trying to get the stakes to actually stay in the loose sand. It was a challenge but when I finally managed the sucker was standing as strong as a tent can stand without use of cement.

I drove around part of the park looking for tortoises. I saw a lot of vaguely tortoise shaped rocks and nothing else. I drove through the cactus garden and checked out the Joshua Trees themselves, which were basically yucca trees with lots of different branches instead of a trunk and some leaves. Eventually I ended up at the springs. I’d hoped to see the oasis but it was a seven mile walk. There was no way I would have survived that, not today! I walked up to the springs and there was some HUGE palm trees, and tangles of plants. I could not keep my eyes open to enjoy its beauty until I heard an impossibly loud HISSSSSSSSSSS and saw someone jump three feet in the air. Rattlesnakes… They were here, thick as my fist and almost as long as I am tall.

I couldn’t keep my eyes open on the way back to the tent. It was 4PM and time for bed. I was toast. I slept like a baby on morphine. I got up to eat dinner a few hours later and went back to bed, not waking up until my alarm went off unexpectedly at 7am. I got up and did some cleaning and took a little walk. On my walk I saw a Jack rabbit, a weird bug, some odd birds, lots and lots of cactuses, evidence of a lapdog, but no tortoises. I took some photos and enjoyed myself, making sure not to wander off the path that I found that seemed to lead straight into the desert for no apparent reason. It led back to the campground. I returned after 30-45 minutes out there. The day before I was told (after setting up the tent) that this loop of the campground was going to be closed for the season today and I had to be out of there by 10, maybe 11 o’clock.

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

June 5, 2011 0

Love Park – Philadelphia PA

I’d never heard of Love Park but I suppose it makes sense that the city of brotherly love would have a Love Park. At the entrance there was a big LOVE, spelled with a heart. I stood in front of it for the usual photo op. Behind this there was a big fountain with very pretty blue water. I felt like jumping in. I wore a sweater because it was cold and somewhat raining but all this walking overheated me a bit. Jumping in, of course, is not allowed. I walked by. I imagine in the summer the plants there are probably blooming and pretty but it was the wrong time of year for that! We walked onwards!

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

May 17, 2011 0

And so it Begins!

Ever since I was a tween I dreamed about going across the entire United States and soaking in everything it had to offer. I had grown up in a bubble – and as nice as that bubble was I wanted to know what else was out there besides the trees and stone walls of New Hampshire. Was it really like visiting another planet out West? Where the people the same all over? Was there anything that united this society besides the idea of country? As much as I longed to know the answer I kept my dreams to myself until at the age of 25 an opportunity arose and I figured it’s now or never.

Suddenly my freakish encyclopedic knowledge was actually useful! I picked lots of destinations – everything I had ever wanted to see from the geysers of Yellowstone, to the fossils of Butte National Monument, to the charismatic Robert the Doll in Key West. I was going to do it all.

A map was procured, one of those big pastel maps of the United States you see hanging in history and geography classes in every public school. Pins were stuck into desirable destinations like some sort of 2-D voodoo doll and then the waiting… the ungodly anxious waiting as the weather slowly creaked from one bone frigid season to something a little more livable. It begins!

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

May 16, 2011 0

Moolac Beach Oregon

When I got to Oregon I realized there was nothing on the roster, I was just driving through. This is when you know I didn’t proof read before I left… how could I not have something planned for Oregon? Its absolutely loaded with fossils and was the once fawned over home of a college I wanted to attend in grade school. (Yes, I planned WAY ahead. Nothing ever came to pass as life just doesn’t work like that!)

I looked up where to find fossils and there was a ton of confusing information. As I guessed many people just walked the highways, the rivers, and the beach fronts, all finding various artifacts, mostly marine in nature. I looked again and found a forum post about a woman who went to Moolack Beach. She came home with a ton of fossil shells and apparently the beach was popular amongst other rock hounds looking for fossils, agate, petrified wood, and other interesting little things. The beach even washed up some sort of structures from an Asian tsunami.

There was one issue. Low tide was at 7:30AM, meaning I’d have to get up at 3AM, just a few short hours of sleep, and get going. This I did. Initially I wasn’t fond of the idea but once I got there I was convinced. This place was amazing. To most of the local hotel people it was a sandy beach and some waves but if you looked closer it was covered in rocks and had the most extensive and deep tide pools I have ever seen. The water had washed the clay on part of the beach into these fantastic rippled structures. A lava rock full of shells lay on the ground. I found a very nice chunk of petrified wood, and as usual there were two ghastly bloated starfish loitering in the tidepools. One was bright red, the other bright orange, and they were the big suckers.

It was drizzling and I didn’t expect to see anyone else but upon arriving there were three other rock hounds picking the beach and by the time I left an hour later there were fifteen of them. I asked one about fossils but she was clueless, obviously here searching for something else. The search therefore was limited and I am not sure I found much of anything but that’s alright, it was a very interesting little beach full of character.

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

May 2, 2011 0